Harley Benton Tube 15 combo

ESBlonde

I had considered handing in my GAS snob certificate after all these years, but I want to extol the virtues of this little amp.
Did I want a new amplifier? Well no, I have a Marshall 1987, a HRD combo and a little Marshall avt20 valvestate for the house. My need came following a hernia op and the requirement not to lift anything for a good few months. 

So for the price of a pedal I figured what the heck. It’s astonishingly lightweight even compared to the valvestate, so instant plus. It has a “Celestion” speaker, reverb and a slip over dust cover.
I’ve now gigged it (social clubs) twice and rehearsed with a full band 3 times. It’s easily loud enough for my needs, but it does sound thick and growling compared to say a Princeton (at 5x the price). It’s more WEM  or vox growl. I’m using it with the gain around 3 and getting volume from the master. I’ve added a Boss GE7 graphic to the pedal board to ‘clean up’ or sparkle the tone a bit. I did try and aphex aural exciter and that was OK, but in reality the GE7 gets ‘er done.
Does it sound fabulous? No, I’ve got the original plexi and this ain’t that. But for a couple of hundred and change it’s extremely portable, responsive and reasonably touch sensitive, loud, master volume, reverb (not a deep splash/surfer type but good enough), 3 band eq plus a ‘tone’ control which is decent in the context of the package.

So in real world use… I messed about with it in the house for a few days. I could see the appeal for many players especially if you want a bit of valve drive. The bass end was a bit Meh! to my ear but on stage/live just dial it down and keep out of the bass players realm. I tried sparkling it up with the aural exciter then replaced that with the GE7 from my acoustic board. It doesn’t take much, you can hardly notice the sliders away from neutral but it makes the base sound much more flexible.

OK it says Harley Benton (and celestion) on the front, but it is badge produced (the USA has the same amp with another brand) and I suspect it’s built to a price. It’s not my best sounding amp, in fact to my taste it’s forth in a harem of 4. That said I needed something very portable to cover 6 months gigs and rehearsals. I still can’t get on with digital emulations, it’s all about the cleans for me. So the price - £220 is mid range pedal money, and for that it’s astonishing value. It sounds good enough for my needs and does home and gig scenarios. Can you get better? Of course, there are a whole realm of booteek, handmade or specialist amps not to mention vintage examples on the market. I’m happy with my purchase (buyers confirmation) but very conscious of the price paid.
if it’s in your radar I suggest you give it a try. A friend of mine bought one used for £100 recently!

ESBlonde

Follow up:
a couple of months on and I’ve used it on 8 gigs and multiple rehearsals. This weekend was a decent festival stage and I found an issue (predictable though). The combo comes with a European mains plug hard wired in, it clips into an adapter for UK sockets. The stage deck vibrated and caused the amp to buzz in time with the kick drum. I wrapped the plug and socket in a jacket to isolate the vibration and the problem went away. I quite like the tone of this amp with a couple of my guitars, so I will cut off the adapter and fit a proper plug, I might even replace the whole cable with a slightly longer cable for convenience. I should have done this earlier but I intended this amp as an interim job while me hernia op recovered. I’m definitely keeping this now though.
On the plus side I’ve had a number of guitarists and other musicians ask about the great tone I’m getting! I am pleased with the thick musical tone certain guitars get, I’m often using a tumnus in low gain with a bright humbucker guitar and it sings. 

ESBlonde

Further follow up:
This has been well gigged now, it’s quite grown on me. Biggest bonus, discovering that a Boss GE7 graphic eq can be so useful in turning it a bit fender deluxe (ish) by pulling down a bit of 400 Hz. Gives two very useful tone characteristics in a compact, lightweight budget friendly package. Is it my favourite sounding amp? No, I’ve got that 1968 50w Marshall small box plexi to be that. But as an easy to gig tool, I’m impressed with this thing.

roberty

Nice mate. I got the Tube5 for testing pedal builds recently and I'm really pleased with it. Didn't want any complicated nonsense there. I added a jack for the internal speaker so I can fit an attenuator (too loud for the house otherwise) and fitted NOS Brimars. It's a sweet sounding thing